Fight operations of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can be defined as a series of sequential operational procedures for reaching and for performing various tasks at a plurality of corresponding waypoints. The total number of waypoints can constitute a given mission flight plan. Uploading coded instructions to program an UAV to carry out any given mission flight plan usually takes place prior to flying the UAV. Uploading a given mission flight plan can be achieved by providing a single data package or a data matrix that contains all the necessary location information plus any additional information needed to complete and to perform the given mission flight plan. The requisite time needed to program and to subsequently upload coded instructions to a UAV for a given mission flight plan varies depending on the size and complexity of the mission flight plan itself.
Presently the typical time to program and to subsequently upload a relatively simple mission flight plan to an UAV can be as short as less than one minute, mainly because most of today's UAVs can only support relatively simple mission flight plans. However in the future, it is expected that UAVs capabilities will become considerably more robust than today's and as a consequence it is expected that the time needed to program and to upload these types of more complex flight missions will increase substantially.
It is recognized that it is possible that higher communications speeds can achieve some relief in reducing upload times but even at higher communication speeds this may still be unsatisfactory.
Presently there are no feasible solutions that are capable of overcoming the time constraints associated with programming and subsequently uploading programming instructions to UAVs so that the UAV can carry out highly complex mission flight plans. This is because presently uploading UAV mission flight plans require the entire operational details for each mission flight plan to be serially uploaded.
The present innovation is oriented to uploading instructions to the UAV from a programming controller that are minimally necessary to modify and/or to upgrade a mission flight plan already in the UAV so that the mission flight plan in the UAV is efficiently converted to match a modified mission flight plan built in a controller. This type of problem is especially aggravating when a given complex mission flight is only slightly modified which is expected to be commonly encountered in most professional use scenarios.
The present innovation discloses a method and a system designed to eliminate or at least substantially reduce these types of burdensome constraints associated with upgrading and/or uploading an entire complex mission flight plan from a controller into a UAV.